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Category: perspective

Almost Morning

Almost Morning

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Though waking up in the wee hours has its deficits, it also has its benefits. And one of them is watching the sky lighten, the trees gradually emerge from the dusk, each individual branch making a pact with the light. Yes, we are here.

Today it was after 6 a.m. when this happened. And even now, as we edge toward 7, the morning is still uncertain, unknowable.

Soon the sun will glance through the front oaks and sparkle on the dew. I’ll walk out the door with music in my ears, lace up my shoes, trot down the street and put a stamp on the day.

But until then it is still almost morning. A time of infinite possibility.

Taking a Stand

Taking a Stand

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I’m writing this post standing up. More and more often it’s the way I like to be, to write, to edit. A tall desk, a place to lean, the words flowing out (am I just imagining this?) a tad more freely.

There’s a reason for this, probably age related, though I’d just as soon not think about that. Sciatica, a pain that starts in the back, rolls down the legs, makes sitting uncomfortable.

Though pushed to stand by necessity, I find it has other charms, keeps me a little more alert, a little more aware of the world around me. It’s an observation-stimulant. I’m more vigilant, not quite as easy in my skin.

And of course, the vantage point can’t be beat. When I’m standing up, I can see farther down the road.

Glaring Error

Glaring Error

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A momentary meditation on glare, on slanting sun and how it blinds us not with darkness but with light. Too much of a good thing, then, or a good thing misdirected. Put this light behind us and we have tall shadows, a crisp sense of possibility.

Shine it in our face, though, and everything else fades away, the colors in the sky, the outlines of the buildings; even the stoplights hide their true colors. Ironic and telling, this inability to see what’s right in front of us. It’s easy to draw parallels.

Most of my walk is due east, but finally, at the end, I turn north. I’m relieved. It’s colder without the sun, but now I can see.

Tiny Hopeful Garden

Tiny Hopeful Garden

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I pass it on the way to work sometime. A dingy little corner at 2nd and D. It’s on the northeast side, next to the homeless shelter and across the street from the tunnel. There’s no more than five or six feet of soil between the sidewalk and the building.

Earlier this season I noticed a few green shoots. Not weeds exactly.  They were more intentional.

As the weeks wore on, I watched the plants grow up and out, the stems thicken , small yellow flowers form. Throughout the hot, dusty summer, they stayed alive. Not flourishing exactly, but not dying, either.

Today I walked past them. The flowers are turning to fruit, curved and healthy. I’m no master gardener, but I think we have a pumpkin patch here. A spot of color in a block of gray. A tiny hopeful garden.

Blank Slate

Blank Slate

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As I walked the strand last week I noticed how swiftly each wave receded to make way for the next, how quickly the foam blew away and the sand dried out in between breakers.

If you’re looking for a blank slate, there is no better place than the beach.

And today, the day after Labor Day, we also have a blank slate. A new year of school for Celia, a return to work for me.

Resolutions? I’m taking my long-distance beach vision to the office. It will help me see what’s important and what’s not. When a deadline looms or an email goes unanswered, I’ll remember the scene above. I’ll take a deep breath, lift my eyes up from the screen and stare out the window. This is what I’ll see.

Long Distance

Long Distance

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My vocation demands close work; I seldom have the
opportunity to look at the horizon. Here I’ve done little else. Whether it’s wondering
if it’s a ship I see on the last curve beyond the furthermost whitecap of the
Atlantic Ocean or looking for an egret across vast tracts of swamp, one way or the other I’m casting my eyes to the faintest, most faraway speck I can see.  
Surely this must be good for one’s eyes — to say nothing of one’s soul.
Long distance — what the eagle spots from his perch on the
highest dead tree in the refuge. 
Long distance — what the birder tries to obliterate
with his binoculars.  
Long-distance vision — what
the pilgrim hopes to bring back from the shore.
Cloud Post

Cloud Post

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Though I’m sitting at a desk staring at a screen, in my mind’s eye I’m surveying clouds. I’m lying on a deck chair, as I did on Saturday. My hands are laced behind my head, and I’m marveling at the puffy cumulus clouds that float across an impossibly blue sky.

Maybe I was just short on imagination that day, but I spied no particular shapes. No castles, dogs or sinister faces. I saw just the clouds themselves, and that was enough. I looked at them for what felt like hours but was only minutes. Still, it was long enough to get lost in their alabaster swirls, their tufted promises; to swim recklessly from one to the other across the fathomless blue.

The clouds were both companionable and regal. Looking at them long enough I wondered what it would be like to be a part of them. It would mean I’d be drenched, of course, but if by some miracle I could remain dry, and I could fly without fear to the outermost thin trails of cirrus, what would the green world look like underneath? How verdant? How insignificant? How much like home?

Photo: Weather report.com

Plane Spotting

Plane Spotting

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A walk yesterday along the George Washington Parkway path took me to Gravelly Point, just shy of National Airport. It’s where you go to see jets take off and land. I’ve heard of this place for years but never visited. September 11, 2011, made the sight of low-flying airplanes considerably less palatable for most of us. But once I  put those associations out of mind, it was hard not to be impressed with the power and the presence of the giant birds.

You hear them before you see them — the roar of their engines as they zoom in from the west. But more impressive even than the sound  is the surreal sight of them overhead, creatures of air approaching land. If you spot them when they’re still miles away, you see them dwarfing the Washington Monument, which has been lessened by distance to an insignificant obelisk.

But quicker than seems possible, they are above you, and (if you are an inexperienced amateur photographer with a slow-shooting camera) you’re trying hard to take the picture at just the right moment — when the plane is immediately overhead, blotting out the sky; when you, this puny earthbound human, are spellbound, filled with joy at the improbable sight.

Sometimes you catch it. And sometimes you don’t.

Framing the Sky

Framing the Sky

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Yesterday I looked up from page proofs long enough to notice how the hole in the sky left open when a large tree fell three years ago has grow a shaggy green border, enough to make a verdant frame for a patch of blue.

I stared at the “picture” inside that frame. It wasn’t a static one, of course, because high up in the canopy a faint breeze was stirring and white clouds bobbed across the blue, like so many duck targets at a state fair booth.  I watched long enough until I saw a hawk glide across the frame. At night I do the same thing with bats, sit in the gloaming and watch for them to dart through the air. They’re more visible when they cross our patch of sky.

It was a sad day when the great oak fell. But in the years since, I’ve grown fond of the space it left behind. Because of it, my eyes are more often drawn to the sky.

Above: a frame of a different sort. 

A Matter of Direction

A Matter of Direction

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This morning I enter the city from the east, the sun an orange disc behind me. Across a broad river and along a flat plain, the bus takes a route I don’t understand and scarcely notice.

For me, a car/Metro Orange Line/Metro Red Line commuter who enters and exits at least three vehicles before I walk into the office, this seems easy. Board a bus in one place, exit in another.

I think about approach and perspective, how the angle of light, the placement of shadows, can make such a difference.

I have arrived at the same destination from a different direction. And this has made an old place seem new again.